Abandoned, Alone, A Savior
by SpazzyLassy105
Summary: Harry Potter really should have known by now that no rules ever apply to him. Full summary inside. Contains slight swearing and s rated T for that reason. GEN FIC; HARRY AND DRACO ARE JUST GOOD FRIENDS AND THEN LATER LEGALLY BROTHERS, SO. Again, the full summary is inside. I hope you don't skip over this like I admittedly do to most of the the 'full summary inside' fics.


**A/N: OMGosh, could it be?! A reasonably lengthed first chapter? WHAT HAS THE WORLD COME TO?! Pleas excuse me while I have a Heart Attack from shock in a corner. Anyway, have fun reading, ducklings!**

Harry Potter grumbled incoherently to himself as he paced around a small, cozy looking home somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. He was conveniently placed in such as place so that no one unwelcome would be able to find him, Ministry of Magic be damned. He was already a ruddy _savior_ (something that he took _great_ displeasure from) and he did not want to go and live out the rest of his life doing the same things he had been doing during the first eighteen years of it – which would, of course, mean running around and slaying dark wizards left and right. Though, when he was younger, it would be more like 'staying alive by the skin of his teeth year after year like a little bloody cockroach', as Draco would say.

And yes, you did just hear correctly. No, don't wiggle your pinky finger in your ear like some cartoon character who can't believe the information that they have been presented with. He was on speaking terms with Draco Malfoy, and they hadn't beheaded each other. And they were also friendly enough to call each other by their first names, not to mention doing surprise-drop-by visits whenever they saw fit, trying to scare the other to bits. Speaking of which...

The fireplace flared green for a moment before a large, orange, _angry _cat came soaring out, screeching bloody murder. Harry just barely saw the pale, long-fingered hand disappear back into the fire before the cat-from-hell descended upon his poor, unsuspecting form. Harry chuckled smoothly – he was twenty-four, not six, angry beasties didn't scare him anymore – before quickly snagging the cat by the skin on the back of it's neck, careful not to hurt it, and chucking the animal back into the fire place.

The muffled curse was reward enough for handling such a creature with his bare hands and Harry laughed once more before settling back in his pacing. Draco's head popped out from the fireplace sometime later, scowling and angry and Harry didn't even try to hide his snickers. The normally pristine and perfect hair was mussed and out of place, tangled with a claw stuck somewhere near the pale man's ear. Harry offhandedly commented, "If you weren't such a girl this wouldn't bother you so much." Draco sniffed at him, apparently not deigning that worth a proper response, and busied himself with extracting his body from the fireplace while still looking at least a bit graceful.  
Harry wouldn't know what graceful looked like if it whacked him over the head with a spatula, as he was no rich person and had no need for it, so he ignored his aristocratic friend and continued his pacing. (Well, he was rich but he didn't act like it). He certainly didn't live like it, Harry thought with a snort, casting an eye about his tattered- but – cozy home.

Draco finally maneuvered himself out of the newly christened Bricks O' Death and kind of grunted at Harry, who immediately pointed to the couch. To the left of the couch there was a small bedside table, and on said table rested a dainty little lamp and an old, frayed book. Draco normally reads the crusty volume on the table when he sidles on over to Harry's humble abode, so it was eventually just left there instead of being pt up and taken back out over week, and the man gives a relieved sigh as he plops his pompous self onto the couch seat and flicks on the light before stretching like a cat and snagging the book.

The cover glistens mischievously, but Draco doesn't notice, too wrapped up in mentally going over what he last read and remembering his page number to actually open up the book and read it. Harry was still pacing, about to burst from anticipation. He'd known that Draco was going to try and get him today, and had prepared his own little surprise. It was nothing big, nothing fancy, and he knew that he could have made up something much _(much)_ more elaborate with the time before Draco had gotten to his house, but...he didn't want the man to hate him for all eternity or something. Besides, Draco was his friend. Friends don't maliciously prank friends, friends...friendly prank friends. So Harry watched from the corner of his eye (_still _pacing) as Draco finally, _finally _begins to thumb through the pages...and gets squirted with a stream of water, coughing and sputtering and glaring Harry's hysterically laughing form into nothing akin to submission because did Draco always did look like a drowned cat when wet?

Draco growls at him before huffing and settling down on the couch with his book. Harry mutters a kind "_adsicco,_" at his companion, drying himoff in an instant. Draco throws him a grateful look and Harry grins before snagging his own book and flopping with his usual grace (read: none) beside his newly dubbed Reading Buddy and opening it...only to be singed with a small burst of fire. Harry blinked once, twice, then shifted and scowled at his smirking companion.

"Frigging albino," he grumbled, throwing out his arms dramatically, "after all I've done for you, you just decide to invite a morally corrupt element into my house and try to _assassinate _me with it? I've had enough assassination attempts recorded in my 'Government Managed' Harry Potter file; and you know what? They were all stamped with this little rejection sticker called _FAILURE._ So how 'bout you walk your skinny little self-"

He was cut off by Draco's undignified yelp of, "Oh, no. You're not pinning me with _that_. Take a look at yourself in a mirror before traipsing into this house and accusing me, Potter! You're such a hypocrite!" Harry blinked, honestly bemused as he glanced down at his standing self, "Wait, wait, wait; I don't see anything wrong with me. And hey, this is_ my_ house! I can_ traipse in_ whenever I want to!" Draco kind of just...stared at him for a little while. Just a little, so that he could conjure enough composure _not _to go repeatedly bash his head into a wall. Then he shook his head in fond exasperation. "First off, no you can't. I am a Malfoy, I have more regality, and therefore I am the only one that can traipse anywhere. Second off, you're honestly bemused by my comment, aren't you?" The _look_ Harry gave him said it all, and Draco quickly continued lest he get castrated, "Molly regularly asks me if you're...err, _okay. _'From the war and all', she says."

And he waited. He waited for about fifteen seconds before Harry's face lit up in a kind of disgusted-but-sympathetic realization. "She thinks I'm anorexic?" he said, eyes wide, "I mean, anorexic people are generally nice, like the rest of the populace, but I'm not. Anorexic, that is." Draco snorted at him condescendingly. "I know that, Scarhead. I come here often enough, but she doesn't. And besides, you actually kind of are." He cut off Harry's protest with a sharp look, "No really, think about it. When you get a project in your head, you just kind of disappear for days; you don't eat, you don't sleep, you don't _bathe, _which is really disgusting, and-"

"Oh Merlin, I've got a Motherhen! Draco on my hands now. What am I gonna doooo?" Draco is about to suggest something scathingly only for a suddenly exuberant Harry to snag his wrist and begin drag him away, cutting off his response. Harry hurriedly began explaining when he saw Draco's 'if you don't unhand me right now, kind sir, you'll be missing a few fingers...' expression, "No, don't bite me. I was messing around with runes the other day – remember, Bill taught me? Anyway, I was messing around on a sheet of paper out in the backyard and I don't know what I made and I don't know how I activated it, but I did. And I think it has a timed response or something, because I _know _I activated it and I know it works but it hasn't done anything. Yet."

Draco sighed. "How do you create something – especially with runes – knowing that it works ad activating it, but not knowing what it does? Oh, wait. This is you we're talking about. Nevermind."

Harry sighed in annoyance at his friend's snark before pushing open the back door and grinning widely at his creation. He heard Draco go breathless beside him and his mouth stretched further, "Yeah. Great isn't it?" 'It' was fifteen feet all around, painted on the grass of his backyard in varying shades of black and grey. "I thought you said you made this on paper?" Draco threw over his shoulder, not accusing, not outraged, just...curious. Harry shrugged, calling back, "I did, and I left it out here on accident. It was like this in the morning. The blond nodded and meandered around the circle of interwoven symbols, following the pattern, muttering to himself. Harry followed him quietly. Draco honestly knew a lot more about runes than he did and could maybe figure out what this thing was and what it did.

"Did you do this in one of your freaky maniac creation periods?" Draco asked. Harry grinned sheepishly. "Yeah. Why do you ask?" he said.  
Draco hmm'd a bit before replying. "It's much more advanced than your usual level of work. Do you think-"

The blond suddenly cut himself off with a gasp, causing Harry to about face from where he was observing a pigeon, wand raised and at the ready. There were no intruders or Death Eater stragglers, so Harry lowered his wand, but Draco was dashing towards a center point in the runic circle. Harry followed after him quickly, eyes sharp and searching. "What's wrong?" he asked quickly, still scanning for signs of danger.  
Draco was pale and wide-eyed, eyes flickering over a few select runes in front of him. "This - with that symbol would – but wait, it's counteracted there, so - but why would - oh! Okay, but then – oh no."

Harry hissed at him, "_What?_" because this was Draco's safety on the line and he would _not _lose someone else close to him. Draco was moving – running, and Harry was doing the same "It's going to activate!" but everything was happening to fast, colors were blurring, sounds were becoming to loud as the adrenalin in his veins pumped, trying to find something to defend against. Draco was almost at the end of the runes, Harry not far behind, but it was too late – the runic circle began to glow, alternating between sickening shades of red and purple that threw everything into grotesque shadows as the sun seemed to wilt and hide behind the clouds, which had suddenly transformed into a dark and stormy grey.

Harry can't move and he suspects Draco is in the same predicament. Th adrenalin in his veins subsides, throwing everything back into focus almost a little too quickly. He struggled against whatever was pinning him in place for a full minute, unlike Draco, who has gone still with narrow, calculating eyes, waiting for the prefect opportunity to strike.

Such a Slytherin.

Suddenly the pinning force is lifted, and Harry dashes forward, intent on snagging Draco and getting to safety, or at least pushing his friend out of the circle, where the runes can't hurt him with whatever it is that they're going to do. He sees that Draco has the same idea, one nicely polished shoe just half of a yard away from the edge of the runes. But in the second that the pinning force lets up, the runes rise, floating off of the ground and _twist. _They wrap themselves around Harry and Draco's struggling bodies, lifting them both off of the ground about five feet. Both of them are wriggling, squirming, trying to get to the other and _get away, _but the runes around Harry suddenly pulsate and the raven haired man _screams. _

He screams like he never has before; not like he has when he injured himself defeating Quirrel, not like he has when the Basilisk bit him, not like he has when Voldemort touched him after getting his body back, not like he had when he threw himself over Cedric's _body,_ and not like when he had locked himself away after the war, screaming and choking and drowning in his sorrow for all of the lives lost that he could have prevented.

No, those seem like nothing now, because now, not only is the biting agony enough to rival, conquer, and brutally murder any physical pain he'd ever felt before, _now _all of the mental anguish and _baggage _that he thought he'd gotten over and lost _came back. _

_Tenfold._

_Screw _whoever said grown men don't cry.

Harry knew he was scaring Draco now, even if the little twat would never admit it and he was s_orry _– he really was, because he knew that Draco would be feeling it soon and he could have prevented this feeling being pressed onto his friend if he had just _tried harder _- but he couldn't help it.

The last thing he heard was Draco – Draco screaming his name over and over, trying to reach him, trying to draw him out of whatever he had been subjected to to fill him with so much pain that it was _plainly visible, _because by the end of the war, he didn't flinch under _Voldemort's cruciatus _– and then Draco just screaming because it had reached him then, too.

Another bright flash almost blinded them both, even with their eyes closed, and one particularly painful pulsation later and they both disappeared in a show of white and lavender, so different than the dark, ugly purple and red that had encased them in their agony.


End file.
